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Blu Ray Drive Will Cost $100 Per PlayStation 3
fembots writes "The Inquirer is running an article detailing how Blu-Ray drives for the PlayStation 3 will cost Sony a small fortune. It turns out that at the release of the console in the first half of 2006, Sony will have to pay more than $100 per drive which will dramatically increase the unit cost of the PS3."
This shortly following the announcement of additional DRM in blu-ray. Maybe Sony has finally made a fatal mis-step. Obviously they haven't learned from history yet.
Where are they getting this from?
The Inquirer doesn't say where they got this number from... they don't have a source... it just seems to have come out of nowhere. Do they have a source they just forgot to cite? Or are they just running rumors without checking them?
This is the same number ($100) the Merill Lynch analyst report about the manufacturing costs of the PS3 (which slashdot itself has reported on at least once in the last few months) gave. I have the same doubts about it that I had then; it isn't from an "official" source (or in this case... any source at all), and I wonder if that $100 represents real per-unit costs or things that ought to be considered sunk costs, things that are just a natural byproduct of getting blu-ray production lines up and running. The reason this distinction matters is because Sony is going to have to be paying the second category of costs anyway, since for whatever reason they're going to be building blu-ray drives for sale anyway... so bundling those costs into the per-unit costs of the PS3 doesn't make all that much sense.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Can they seriously not fit all their games' data in a Dual-layered DVD?
This might be a deal-breaker for me. If I can interface my PS3 with, say, my PC or share it out to the network to use the Blu-Ray drive with non-gaming discs, then it's useful new technology and adopting it with the PS3 may end up cost-effective in the long run. Otherwise, this is Sony using new tech for... What purpose, exactly? Copy protection? Gee, thanks.
Synergy is your friend
This is actually a very smart move by Sony in my opinion. With Sony backing Blu-Ray (I'm assuming) for the next generation DVD format, this will enable Sony to move large numbers of Blu-Ray drives, driving down the price and increasing the installed base of consumers with Blu-Ray players. Not to mention Sony gets to safely sell at a loss with game licensing backing up their bottom line... Leaving Sony and the Playstation as the best vendor and device for Blu-Ray movie playback and price.
Do Sony really expect a lot of people to be able to afford these? Given the depressed state of the US economy, I can't see people snapping these up.
I suspect the Nintendo revolution will be reasonably priced, and I'll most likely buy one of those instead.
I own a ps2, but really can't justify spending that much on a console.
But what you are forgetting is that Microsoft DIDN'T make up the loss. They only made a profit on the Xbox division one quarter out of the Xbox's entire lifespan. And that one quarter was when Halo2 was released.
or you could wait for the Nintendo Revolution, which will probably be priced reasonably - announcements about this console (possibly a release date) should be made shortly at the Tokyo Games Show.
You're thinking about having a worthwhile PC for playing recently released games. Standardization is an issue. Consoles standardize platforms for developers and ensure that games play the same way across the spectrum. You're paying modestly (even at $400 US) for standardization and a uniform game experience.
Also, gaming in front of a PC is not as cool as vegging out on the couch with your XBox or PS2.
Some would argue that GAMING PCS are a waste of money. What is it going to cost you to keep your PC current and viable as new games come out? I got my XBox for ~$150, and that was like 15 months ago.
un burrito me trampeó.
Well if you assume there's a profit margin, that's an expensive increase in price. However, on most consoles the manufacturers lose money per every console sold. The profit comes from the games which are (aside from the one-time cost of the development) incredibly inexpensive to make; I would assume less than a dollar each. I wouldn't expect it to raise the price much, if any. I would also assume that the production price will go down after a while. I'm personally not going to worry much about a price increase.
Ya, just like they did with SACD. All their DVD players and DVD dream systems were being made with SACD to give the format a foot in the door. The bottom line is that nobody wants SACD because nobody has a great stereo and nobody cares enough to notice a difference. It's the same with Blu-ray. 90% of people don't own a TV that is going to show a difference and they don't want to re-buy their recently bought DVD collection. Even those with nice HDTVs largely don't want any more. The market for Blu-ray or HD-DVD is probably 1% this year and maybe 5% next year. In other words, complete failure awaits.
The point of ANY high def drive is moot. Seriously. How long is it going to take for enough people to upgrade to a high definition set that could take advantage of (and justify) the drive's capabilities?
Sheesh, we may as well wait to justify the Playstation 4 and XBox 720.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I thought they (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) all take a loss on the console, and make the money back on the overly priced games?
If this is so, then it would be more like $85 you'd have towards the drive (and if you live in Canada, it would convert to about $130).
they punish you anyway. the console manufacturers i mean.
when the ps3/xbox360/revolution come out soon, you can buy one. but when you buy one, even though you paid for the graphics chip, the sound chip, the cpu, the vector/simd processors, the storage units; these are all off-limits to you, THE OWNER.
that means you need to get the company's permission to access your own PROPERTY!
how is this any different than lexmark's position? in fact it's even worse. these COMPUTERS can be so much more and legally you are in the RIGHT to do with them anything you wish, including but not limited to, programming the chips on the units to accomplish any task.
before you rush headlong to tell me "it's their business model"... i'll have to tell you how their business model is of any concern to me. to prevent legal access to your own property under the use of high-grade encryption constitutes a breach of commerce. to make this model work, it requires them to strip you of property rights.
those are your chips they're holding hostage.
and "don't buy from them" is not the answer. because here we have companies that are practicing an unethical business. you don't see gillette requiring high-grade encryption on the razor blade cartridges preventing customers from using it on any other brand of handle. how absurd would that be. software in this respect, follows the same pattern. if you give them the right to block lawful use of software, then also to be consistent you'd have to give them that kind of authority over physical items as well.
don't let them fool you with adjacent arguments about how this is their business model or how they sell the consoles (read computers) at a loss and make it up on game sales. that's a bunch of hogwash. this isn't at all about copying games or not paying for their hard work. because up till now i've only talked about one thing: access to the programmability of the chips. your chips, once you purchase the item. we're not talking about renting here, you have the RIGHT to access those chips.
if they have to sell consoles more expensively, then do so but any business model that deprives you of full access to your own property, is illegal and should be outlawed. this would never hold up under an educated citizenry.
i sincerely have no idea why more people aren't competely outraged over this. you're not renting these devices. you outright buy them. you buy everything, including the right to use the software on the machines. yeah, you purchased a copy of the core system software.
and we're not talking about 8bit microcontrollers (though the principle still applies), these are powerful multimedia processors. you have the right to have full access to those resources. it's not like you broke into IBM's hq and are running programs on their mainframes, this is YOUR property and the bastard companies are denying you your right to access it.
if they can't make money (and there's no reason whatsoever that they can't and still allow end-users to fully have access) then they need to find a business they can or go out of business.
for heaven sakes people, fight for basic rights like property rights or you'll truly regret it in the future.
the right to read comes to mind... but if all text is electronic and you don't and can't own the hardware with full access... it'll make you pine for these days we live in now as the good old days.
oh and btw, there are other ways to prevent "piracy", you don't need to deny the owner their property rights just to outlaw game copying.
just to reiterate, i have no interest in game "piracy", i only want full access to my own hardware. and i'm sure you do too.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Either TuxRacer is the first and last chapter of your PC gaming experience or you're paying the Microsoft tax. Looks like you're stuck with the console.
Sony is more evil than 10 Microsofts could ever hope to be.
You're kidding right? The point of these is not "HDTV", though it will be nice for HDTV. The point is that you can throw 50-100GB on a single disc. This in turn means large, detailed textures, hi-poly models, audio, video, and anything else they want to throw on the disc.
DVDs just don't cut it. They never really did. Right now I'm playing FFXI and, on the PS2, it takes about 16GB. And the texture and model quality isn't even all that great. When we start getting into next-gen platforms which can handle lots more data, 50-100GB will be barely enough.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Either TuxRacer is the first and last chapter of your PC gaming experience or you're paying the Microsoft tax. Looks like you're stuck with the console
Yeah, because TuxRacer is the *only* native Linux game of note . . .
this would never hold up under an educated citizenry.
Neither would your lack of capitalization.
for heaven sakes people, fight for basic rights like property rights or you'll truly regret it in the future.
It's funny you talk about our property rights - what about theirs? Do they not have the right make and sell the product of their choice?
Oh, that's right, the bourgeois have no such rights.
Vote Lenin!
How much does this Blueray tech cost over using HD-DVD...
Your freedom.
Regards,
Steve
False dilemma. Other options: C) Nintendo D) None of the Above
(The rest is just blah blah blah)
News flash: The act of modifying a console has never been found illegal. While companies have tried (Sony in Australia, everybody going after Lik Sang, etc), the only cases that ever hold up are those that also involve piracy. Thus, you certainly can hack your Xbox36/PS3/Revolution to your heart's content, so long as you're not doing anything otherwise illegal (using it to pirate movies and games, accessing services that otherwise bar modified consoles like Xbox Live, etc).
There's certainly a grey area around console modification due to the DMCA, but that's about circumventing a copy protection device. If you're modifying your console to run linux, or to play homebrew games, you can argue that you're not breaking the DMCA. If you were to come under fire, which is doubtful as companies like Sony or Microsoft really only target the egregious offenders (people modifying Xboxes and then selling them with pirated games already on the hard drive for example), any competent lawyer should be able to do the right thing so long as there's no evidence of piracy (you mention you don't want to pirate games, so don't fall to that temptation once you do modify your console).
In short, take off the tinfoil hat and realize that there's no way they can stop you from poking around in the internals of your console in the privacy of your own home. You may lose certain services (voided warranty, banned from online play), but in terms of the hardware itself you can do whatever you please.
*ducks*
To which you buy NONE of them!
It's not like you're being forced into buying a damn games console for god's sake...
BTW... my PC will still run PC games from 1995 as well as brand new titles... name a console that can do THAT
Does the Gameboy count as a console?
No sig
Sure, if cutesy kids games are your thing, go for Nintendo.
They certainly are if I have to choose between them and the masturbatory, self-indulgent tripe that passes for "mature" these days. Honestly, don't you guys feel the least bit patronized? Or are tits and violence the only things you want from an experience?
And "property rights" aren't exactly basic rights. They're second-tier rights useful only becasue they perserve certain first tier rights--namely, liberty and the right to a fair share of the profit from your labor.
Any "right" is tied inherently to property and ownership. If you own something, you have complete control over it. Sale of goods transfers those rights.
Property rights do, in fact support liberty and fair wages, in that they are the foundation of those rights. You have a right to fair wages because your work is a product of your body, which you own.
You might do well to listen to a class on the constitution by Michael Badnarik (which you can download here). He's extremely well-read and very informative on this subject in general, and how it fits into constitutional law specifically.
When moderating, assume I have not yet had my coffee.
Here's the thing. The PS3 is going to be hitting the streets at the $300-350 mark with Bluray inside. People will buy the PS3 because it's the PS3. There's will be several million units out in people's homes within weeks of release. They won't conciously decide to get a high def video player, it will just come with it.
On the other hand, to buy an HD-DVD player, as a stand alone device, you'd have to have a specific reason to buy just that. It'll only play discs, not record them, so you'd need a selection of movies available. But how many movies are there really going to be in 6 months or even a year down the line? Think about how long it took from the first DVD's hitting the shelves to really becoming mainstream. This is going to take far longer because most people don't have the TV's necessary to make use of the players.
On the other hand, PS3 owners will just have an HD player sitting right there, just waiting. They buy the device to play the games, and then down the road it turns out they can play movies too.
If you were a hollywood studio and you wanted to choose to back a format and one of the formats was going to be guaranteed to be in millions of homes within a year and the other was a roll of the dice, which would you choose?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
You know, no offense, I find the "buy Nintendo because it's priced reasonably" argument to be as bogus as "buy an XBox because it has a GF3" in it. We're not talking a lawnmower or a washing machine or whatever else that is fully self-contained and does something all by itself. We're talking a game console, which has one single use: to play games.
So here's a crazy idea: I'll buy a console for what games it has, not for the theoretical gigapixels per second (I don't play directly with the shader pipelines, I play with games that use those), nor because it's the cheapest (even something that costs only $100 is still just a wasted $100 if it doesn't also have games that interest me.)
_If_ the Revolution will have any games that interest me, sure, I'll buy one. But if not, not.
_If_ Sony's consoles again are the ones with 90% of the story driven RPGs, I'll go buy a Sony console again.
So far, I don't even like Nintendo's kinds of games, which were really the only ones that were exclusive to the N64 or GCN. Now I won't call them "bad" games or "kiddie" games, but they're just not in the genres I like. I know others like them. More power to them as far as I'm concerned. But I don't.
So unless Nintendo hires a new designer sometime soon, _I_ just can't see myself buying a Revolution, no matter at what price. On the other, hand, being a very happy and entertained owner of both the Playstation and PS2, I can easily see myself biting the bullet and forking over $500 for a PS3.
But again, I'll wait and see what games are available for them, and _then_ decide whether I buy either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Unfortunatly, if you want Next-Generation hardware in your console, it's gonna cost. Personally, PS3 is still a very attractive proposition, compared to the disappointing spec of the XBox-360, which is looking very current generation now, and very Last Generation when the PS3 launches... To answer the question, "Does PS3 need 50Gb of removable storage?", yes, to full support HD displays, you need high defination storage.
It'll come out for PS2. The horde will buy it. And rightly so.
This guy are sick.
Yeah, but you have to pay the Cedega tax instead. And considering that many (most?) computers come with windows preinstalled, you most likely *also* pay the Micro$oft tax as well.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.